PLM & Sustainability News March 2024

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The PLM Green Global Alliance (PGGA) mission is to educate, advocate, and collaborate across the boundaries of technical disciplines, industries, and international borders to advance the use of Product Lifecycle Management strategies and technologies in the transition to a more sustainable decarbonized circular economy.

In our latest quarterly PLM & Sustainability News Digest we hope to provide not only timely information but also inspiration to the thousands of professionals around the world who work in PLM-related fields and care not only about delivering products and profits but also protecting people and the planet. We believe these objectives do not have to be in conflict, but in fact are absolutely synergistic when it comes to sustaining the long-term wealth of our economies and health of our communities and ecosystems.

Our recap of news and resources from a busy 1Q2024 is easy to scan for what interests you or might have been missed in your own feeds about the following topics:

  • News & Events from the PLM Green Initiative
  • Updates from PLM Green Study Themes
    • Sustainability
    • Circular Economy
    • Green Energy
    • Life Cycle Assessment
    • Climate Change
    • Design for Sustainability
  • Publications, News, and Events from PLM Solution Providers, Consultancies, and Professionals
  • A Closing Commentary on Progress

News and Events from PLM Green

The PGGA announced the formation of a new special interest theme to be focused on Product Life Cycle Assessments (PLCA or LCA) that will be led by Klaus Brettschneider. The goal is to help investigate, validate, and promote the use of PLM-enabling business strategies and software technologies that can reduce the environmental impact of products, most notably greenhouse gas emissions associated with their sourcing, manufacture, use, and recycling. More information can be found HERE.

PLM Green contributor Mark Reisig, who is the Sustainability and Green Energy Practice Director at CIMdata, has authored a comprehensive thought leadership paper on PLM and Sustainability. In his signature paper, Mark details the defining challenge of our time for technologists, engineers, and innovators to decarbonize the global economy by minimizing greenhouse gas emissions that are rapidly warming the planet. And to do so while we still have time, this decade, before the worse effects of climate change are experienced and planetary tipping points breached. The paper is available to download HERE.

Earlier this year, PLM Green moderators Jos Voskuil and Mark Reisig interviewed Makersite CEO Neil D’Souza to learn how AI-powered Product Lifecycle Intelligence (PLI) solutions can bring together cost, environmental, compliance, and risk data in one place as a foundation to make smarter, greener decisions. Watch the recorded interview HERE.

More recently, Jos and Mark interviewed Mark Rushton, Senior Product Marketing Manager and Ryan Flavelle, Associate Product Owner, both at aPriori Technologies. The company aPriori focuses on digitizing the entire manufacturing process from design to production in a way that fully supports sustainability. As a result, their Manufacturing Insight Platform can quickly and easily calculate the CO2 emissions associated with manufacturing and therefore assess environmental impact of products in a data-driven reliable manner. Learn more and view the recorded interview HERE.

In addition to Makersite and aPriori, the PGGA has now interviewed sustainability solution leads at Aras, Autodesk, CIMdata, Dassault Systèmes, PTC, SAP, Sustaira, and Transition Technologies PSC to learn about their commitment, products, and customer use cases. These recorded interviews can all be found HERE with more to come this year.

PLM Green co-founder Jos Voskuil led a roundtable panel discussion on “Advancing Sustainability with PLM: Four Key Business Transformations” with Dassault Systèmes ENOVIA CEO Stéphane Declée and NETVIBES CEO Morgan Zimmermann. The focus of their conversation was how Product Lifecycle Management solutions enable manufacturers not only to innovate more quickly but also to create more sustainable products that support the circular economy. This is especially urgent given that a recent survey found 90% of manufacturing companies have a sustainability mandate, yet less than 40% are able to measure the environmental footprint of their own products, much less components from their supply chain. Watch the recorded webinar HERE.

The PLM Green Global Alliance LinkedIn Group recently celebrated its 1,000th member, Nelson Pinto who is a Product Development Engineering Manager at Simoldes Plastics, an automotive industry supplier based in Portugal with plants across Europe. We welcome Nelson who represents the ideal profile of a member that PLM Green seeks to serve as a non-commercial resource on the role of PLM in sustainability.

Are you like many PLM Green followers with far more books on your reading list than you have time? Join our PLM Green book discussions where guest moderators share what they learned from recent reads like “Speed & Scale: An Action Plan for Solving our Climate Crisis Now” by Silicon Valley VC John Doerr and “The Future We Choose: Surviving the Climate Crisis” by Christiana Figueres, architect of the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement. To join our discussions or nominate your title suggestions, send a note to info@plmgreenalliance.com.

Updates from PLM Green Study Themes

There are many applications of PLM in creating a low-carbon sustainable circular economy as referenced on the PLM Green website and discussed in our PLM Green LinkedIn Group. Due to the width and depth of these PLM applications, the PGGA is organized around five core special interest study groups or themes which are: Sustainability, Green Energy, Circular Economy, Climate Change, and Life Cycle Assessment. Each special interest group is led by one or more volunteer moderators that presently includes Jos Voskuil from TacitIT, Klaus Brettschneider from LinxAS, Mark Reisig from CIMdata, Patrice Quencez from CIMPA PLM Services, and Richard McFall from PLM Alliances. Here are a few items they recommended be included for this quarter’s news digest.

Sustainability News (moderators Jos Voskuil and Mark Reisig)

We are now starting to see more real-world case studies profiling the business performance of companies who make Sustainability/ESG a priority. One recent example is from the CEO of European automotive technology leader FORVIA, Patrick Koller, who recently posted about improved profitability all while they “reinforced our focus on ESG performances standing now one year ahead of schedule on our CO2 neutrality targets for scopes 1 & 2. We launched MATERI’ACT (dedicated to the development of sustainable materials) to help the Group reaching its Design for Scope3 objective for 2030 and CO2 net-zero by 2045.”

If you have ever tried to influence the sustainability journey of other people or businesses you will find help in this LI post on “The net zero transition requires a human transition.” The author Mark Curtis, Global Sustainability and Thought Leadership Lead at Accenture Song, explains why talking about sustainability alone won’t work without an understanding of the six life-centric archetypes that show people’s different starting points toward sustainable living and thus shed light on how to best motivate them to make sustainable choices.

The International Institute for Management Development (IMD) report on “Sustainability Trends Shaping Corporate Priorities in 2024” reflects on the differing business priorities of executives around the world. One positive trend comes from the EU on greater carbon accountability; another from China on driving sustainable innovation, and most importantly a world-wide trend for greater and deeper levels of international collaboration. As you think about how to engage and influence your colleagues, read the full report HERE.

Explore more news and resources on the PLM & Sustainability Theme website page.

Circular Economy News (moderator Patrice Quencez with contributors Evgeniya Burimskaya and Tom Boudeville)

The conference paper “A PLM Vision for Circular Economy” written by Sofia Freitas de Oliveira & António Lucas Soares redefines PLM due to the shift from the mass production model to a new paradigm of personalized, on-demand, customer-centric, and knowledge-based production. In doing so, they highlight the growing concerns around sustainability and circular economy, which require improved products that can be used for longer, with multiple life cycles.

Butterfly Model of the Circular Economy from Ellen MacArthur Foundation

The European SUSTAINair initiative is to provide the aviation sector with a transition runway to a low-carbon circular economy while tackling the increase in resource consumption, waste, and emissions along the entire aviation component value chain. The recent project report deliverable “New Recyclate Materials with LifeCycle Impact Assessment” defines Life Cycle Assessment and Circular Economy, and then explores a LCA-CE model for the aviation industry to bring the principles together for assessing the environmental impact of new materials.

An article in the publication Sustainability on “Leveraging PLM and Circularity for Product Development” describes the transition from a linear to a circular economy. The author, Joseph Prock, remarks that the linear model is largely unsustainable. The circular economy, on the other hand, aims to minimize environmental impact by regenerating or reusing materials. To achieve this, PLM systems can facilitate the transition to the circular economy from the earliest stages of product design.

If you are interested in learning more about what it really means to manifest a circular economy, we recommend the “The Circular Economy Show Podcast from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation” which already has 144 episodes from which to select and listen.

Green Energy News (moderator Mark Reisig)

According to the International Energy Agency (IEA) renewable energy grew rapidly in 2023, but will still need to grow faster to meet the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) which is the goal established by the 2015 Paris Agreement.

Cumulative renewable electricity capacity in the main and accelerated cases and Net Zero Scenario from the IEA at https://www.iea.org/

We are all familiar with the impact of climate change due to global warming where much of the focus is on carbon emissions. Yet, methane is responsible for about 30% of global warming as it is a far more potent GHG but thankfully does not remain in the atmosphere as long. This new article from Google VP Yael Maguire explains how new satellites and AI algorithms can trace methane sources around the globe. One such satellite just launched is MethaneSAT that will orbit the earth 15 times a day mapping, measuring, and tracking methane leaks across the oil and gas producing regions of the globe.

A new article in Renewable Energy World makes the case for why digital twins are essential to transition our fossil fuel based utility grid to distributed renewable energy sources where “Using data, analytics, and artificial intelligence, digital twins can provide insights and recommendations that can improve the operation and management of the energy network.”

An Earth.org post reports the good news that EU Fossil Fuel CO2 Emissions Hit 60-Year Low in 2023 Amid Clean Energy Expansion where they also report “The rapid expansion of clean energy including solar and wind and lower demand for electricity across the European Union last year resulted in an 8% drop in CO2 emissions.”

A technology breakthrough by scientists at Harvard University could help overcome the perceived challenge of Electric Vehicle battery life, especially cold weather range anxiety. Researchers reported that they have developed a new “solid-state” battery that can be charged in the time that it takes to fill up a tank of gas, and more important, be recharged at least 6,000 times with the battery still retaining 80% capacity.

Investors and their startups are busy innovating not only carbon-free ways to produce green hydrogen (GH2), but also then transport it, store it, and use it in industries like mobility and aviation with the minimum of additional GHG emissions. The company H2MOF is one example, cofounded by a Nobel Laureate, that is pioneering advancements in the field of metal-organic framework (MOF) materials to help solve the hydrogen storage problem without high pressures or low temperatures, both which consume energy.

For additional news about the growth in renewable energy, follow the posts and presentations by Mark Reisig at CIMdata. To watch what is happening in fast-growing ASEAN markets, where the need to leave fossil fuel energy behind is beyond urgent, we also recommend Assaad Razzouk CEO from Gurin Energy who posts and podcasts about the good news in renewables such as solar and wind power adding more energy for consumption faster than LNG or nuclear ever have.

Life Cycle Assessment News (moderator Klauss Brettschneider)

Life Cycle Assessments (LCA) that evaluate the environmental impact, or footprint,  typically reveal all the negative consequences that a product, process, service, business, or individual has in GHG emissions. When approached in this manner, it appears that reducing footprints is the only action we can take. This can be rather depressing, leaving the feeling that nearly everything we do, make, consume, eat, etc. is bad because everything has some footprint.

Now Gregory A. Norris, who teaches LCA at Harvard and Chief Scientist at LCA solution provider Earthster, has introduced the alternative concept of “handprints.”  Handprints represent the positive actions that counterbalance or compensate for the negative impacts of our carbon footprints. You can find his research summarized in “An Introduction to Handprints and Handprinting” available in this MIT PDF download.

In a similar manner for businesses, Paul Polman and Andrew Wonston describe how corporations can take action to give more than they take in their book “Net Positive: how courageous companies thrive by giving more than they take” published by Harvard Business Review Press.

Climate Change News (moderators Richard McFall and Klaus Brettschneider)

Keeping up with the staggering volume of news about climate change can be challenging, especially since much news and analysis is increasingly behind media paywalls. That’s why PLM Green co-founder Richard McFall prepares the monthly Climate Change Chronicles to offer a quick-to-scan digest of news from around the world about the impact of a changing climate on people and the planet. Read the latest edition HERE then subscribe to future editions by email.

Featured image of global average land and ocean temperatures from https://climate.copernicus.eu/climate-indicators/sea-surface-temperature

Furniture manufacturer Ikea provides another business case study example that it is possible to decouple growth from emissions. The global company has made good progress by delivering a 24% reduction in Scope 1, 2 and most importantly 3 GHG emissions against 2016 baselines, all while achieving a 31% increase in sales. Crucially this includes a 23% drop in Scope 3 emissions since 2016, including a 12% year-on-year decrease in 2023.

Do you have strong professional interest in climate change science and policy? If so, the Climate Change Professionals Group on LinkedIn may be another resource for you to connect with and learn from like-minded individuals where a recent post summarized free courses on sustainability.  On LinkedIn we also recommend following energy and climate change journalist Amy Harder and climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe, both whose blogging discipline puts us to shame.

Design for Sustainability (New To be Announced!)

Do you have experience or interest in the field of Design for Sustainability (DfS)? If so, we would like to hear from you as we consider standing up a focus theme to cover this topic and seek volunteer moderators to lead the effort. Send us a note to info@plmgreenalliance.com and then read more about PLM Tools to Design for Sustainability in this previous guest author post from Roger Franz.

Publications, News, and Events from PLM Solution Providers, Consultancies, and Professionals

Aras and Tech-Clarity released an eBook on “Operationalizing Sustainability with the Digital Thread: How can manufacturers operationalize sustainability to meet ESG demands without compromising performance, quality, and availability” that is available in executive summary form from Tech-Clarity HERE with the full report from Aras downloadable HERE.

Image Courtesy of Tech-Clarity at https://tech-clarity.com/

Autodesk Chief Sustainability Officer, Joe Speicher who represented Autodesk at COP28 this year, has shared Autodesk’s participation in the Market Transformation Action Agenda. The global-spanning initiative led by the World Business Council offers a roadmap for achieving sustainability goals and fostering market transformation.

CIMdata announced a survey on the role of digital twins that includes questions about the use of digital twins in sustainability. Both industry users and solution providers are invited to participate in the survey available here.

CIMPA PLM Services Director Consultant Patrice Quencez published an article on “Sustainability: Beyond the hype, beyond boundaries” that references the European Digital Product Passport as an enabler for more sustainable and circular PLM. The article is available here.

Dassault Systèmes released a customer case study on how paperboard producer Metsä Board improved the functionality, recyclability, and brand impact of its packaging solutions while maximizing product performance and minimizing carbon footprint. It’s available here.  Dassault Systèmes also profiled the challenges and benefits of a Circular Economy in this post available here along with tips on how best to adopt eco-design practices.

InMediasP, a Data Deciders company, Managing Director Dr. Jörg Lüddemann writes about the role of Green PLM in this new post available here where he also announces a Green PLM conference to be held later this year at the EUREF Campus in Berlin, Germany.

PTC business unit Arena published a post on “Sustainable Product Development Redefined: How PLM and LCA Integration Paves the Way” available here that explores why the combination of PLM + LCA is a game changer for manufacturers. Also at PTC, the V.P. of Sustainability Dave Duncan, previously interviewed by PLM Green, completed a nearly three-month Sustainability Tour across Europe which you can read about in his feed, and Chief Sustainability Officer Catherine Kniker was interviewed by The Net Zero Institute on “Greening the Manufacturing Chain: Navigating the Shift Towards Sustainability in 2024.”

SAP’s Chief Marketing and Solutions Officer for Sustainability, Jonas Dennler,  outlined SAPs plan to support the Catena-X international collaboration for creating a more standardized, reliable, and trustworthy exchange of data within a supply chain of industries, like automotive, that have widely different regulations, data sovereignty, and IP protection across the globe. More information available here on LinkedIn. Jonas is also author of the LI Newsletter Technology4Sustainability.

Siemens asks “just how sustainable are our products” and discusses how to obtain product carbon footprint (PCF) data using the SIGreen web application with the cross-industry Estainium Association network in this post available here.

Transition Technologies PSC portfolio lead Dr.-Ing. Erik Rieger will host a workshop at the prostep ivip Symposium in Munich on April 10 and 11 with a focus on “The digital twin as the basis for sustainability over the entire life cycle of a product.” More information available here. Transition Technologies, who promotes GreenPLM, also published a new report available here offering insights into the sustainability challenges that manufacturing companies are facing and why PLM is the key for sustainability in a complex system of product development.

Closing Commentary on Progress

When Jos Voskuil in the EU and I (Richard McFall) in the US started the PLM Green Global Alliance in 2020 there were few PLM-focused organizations, solution providers, consultants, media, or blogs talking about sustainability, much less climate change, at least publicly. To be honest, our goal at the time was just to either find or build a community of other like-minded professionals who shared our belief that the most important application of PLM technologies we expect to ever see will be in the transition to a more sustainable low carbon circular economy.

As evidenced by all the positive content of this newsletter – and despite the distressing news about rising CO2 levels, climate change, and extreme weather disasters – we have now crossed a tipping point in the awareness of PLM as a most important  sustainability asset. While we’d like to think PLM Green had a small role in this, we know the explosion of interest in sustainability by PLM professionals (including users, developers, researchers, investors, consultants, trainers, students, marketers, analysts, and even retirees) was inevitable with or without our modest effort.

We thank PLM Green moderators, contributors, supporters, and followers for their participation and encouragement in our shared journey towards sustainability that each of us can be thankful to be involved with in small or large ways alike.

Receive future PLM & Sustainability news by registering HERE then join our PLM Green Global Alliance LinkedIn Group HERE.

Send your news, announcements, and events for inclusion in our next quarterly PLM & Sustainability News Digest to info@plmgreenalliance.com.